The Motherload

Exhale. 

Home, after an emotionally charged trip. Another bend in the road, another upside-down loop completed. 

Exhale.

 We, none of us, emerged unscathed, but I just read a quote somewhere along the lines of "people without scars have lead a poor life." In this I find solace.  I'm a quote-loving person; they inspire me, send me messages, lend meaning to an experience; they can describe what I'm feeling better than I can.  My family loves quotes. Every day I try to read and meditate on an inspirational quote to help focus my day. I don't know whether it's because we Italians love proverbs, or that I'm a singer and a lover of words.  Doesn't really matter, I guess, right? Accept what IS.  Dad was someone who helped me embrace acceptance. "Life's not fair," he'd say when I'd be upset about something, even though we both knew the "something" really sucked. Acceptance helps achieve a better attitude about an experience, a relationship, a  *diagnosis*.  To make yourself crazy trying to figure something out that is beyond explanation is a recipe for disaster. Oooh, I'm waxing poetic tonight; this time at my father's house has been another in a series of life-changing, cathartic experiences that leave me at once exhausted and grateful.  

K and I met family and friends at my father's house to clean out the attic and garage, as we move toward a more final closure of material things.   My husband, sister, and I worked for two days straight to unload the attic, go through the boxes, and decide what to keep and what to ....not keep. It's really hard to say "throw away" or even "discard." It's hard to say that about my fathers things--things that he loved, but things that neither my sister nor I loved.  We'd look at each other, and agree. Or we'd talk about the memory it evoked, and maybe laughed or cried. And then decide. K largely stayed out of it, as was appropriate. He worked so hard, and there were some little discoveries he paused to look at, but never made decisions. He respected my sister and I as we wept while reading our father's love letters to our mother.  He knew we'd found the Motherload and needed time alone, together, to process. I don't think we EVER expected to find these letters. We knew we'd find the requisite boxes of Christmas decorations, actually huge numbers of boxes of Christmas decorations--at first my mom's joy, and then my dad's attempts to bring her joy. They are now memories for us--of my mom before her illness overtook us, after my father continued to offer her gifts that he knew (and then later hoped) she'd like, to give her  a smile.  But the letters we've found date from the three years of dating prior to getting married. 

We just sat on the garage floor, trading letters, reading lines here and there to each other, and crying. What had gone so wrong with their marriage. Their courtship was so full of love, my father an effusive, poetic young man dedicating himself to her happiness.  We don't have her letters, but we know she wrote back from some of his responses.  SO. HOLD THAT THOUGHT.

My aunt arrived on Friday; she's my father's sister-- my last link to him. My sister and I told her about the letters, and she wept, too. She couldn't bring herself to read them because she's been torturing herself trying to answer the great question of "HOW" my parents' relationship devolved and disintegrated and "WHY" it happened.  It's torturing her. I shared with her my theory of acceptance, and that some of the same questions were troubling me, never to be answered, so I released them to the Universe. And accepted. It has brought me an enormous amount of peace during a horrifying time where the world seems upside down and everyone seems to be speaking a language different from your own. I thought my way through it, analyzed what I had, and had to offer it up to the Universe, so that  power greater than mine can transform it into something useful--if not for me, for someone else.  I'm comfortable with that.

Transformative moment #1: My sister and I decided I'd take the letters, scan them, and make a book of the letters one, for each of us. They are so beautifully written, so full of happy emotion, bursting with love for my mother. I would have loved to see her face read these letters. I know she would be smiling, a shy smile because she didn't seem comfortable in her own skin, ever.  I can't wait to do this project for  us. 

My sister and I pulled it together and moved on  through the other boxes found in the garage, and slowly feeling our way to letting certain things go. My father was a sentimental keeper, always organized, but he kept a lot. We worked through the day, some tears, some smiles. All in all, it felt pretty peaceful. We had the privacy that I think a day like this should be afforded. Peaceful, private, reverent. All in preparation to allow friends to come and ramp up the amount of possessions that were heading toward the dumpster. (We both felt better knowing we had an Estate Sale pile)

About a week prior to our visit, I took up the offers my father's friends had so sincerely made should we ever need help of any kind. Kind of like the Counsel of Dads. (I should tell them that, see what they think!) An email to three men brought seven more to the house on Saturday at 10am ready to work.  Cars, SUV, Trucks pulled up to the house they knew. The saw the two dumpsters on their way to being filled. I am sure it was hard for them to be back. But they came with hugs, and smiles, stories here and there as we cleaned out the garage and the remaining stuff from the attic. We had help figuring out what might be worth put in the Estate Sale area father than the dumpster. I felt a lot of anxiety, even with such good people in good spirits. Then came, at the end of the day, a natural stopping place, and people saw the dumpsters full, the Estate Sale area defined, and my father's los trios amigos came inside and hovered, wanting to talk more intimately with Karl and I; to share the stories based on a particular object they saw in the house. Good men, these are. People with whom I have MY FATHER in common. It feels more like that now, than ever. They ceded my dad's clubs to Karl. That was really special. They split up his movies among the three of them (they had similar tastes) and then we got to ask them questions, too: did he ever talk about dating again after my mother passed away? Did he have lady friends in different places? They responded there was a Ms so an so n Singapore; ad Ms Thus and So in Romania. We shared some stories, funny stories of our interactions over the years. It was concluded, informally, that these men are the dearest men I've ever met and yet know only vicariously through my father. Will the Universe keep us together? I hope so, I want these men in my life.

There were meetings to schedule along the way, with our usual cast of characters, and they all went well; I asked about anschluss of paperwork,  hoping we're getting to the point of maybe less paperwork...who knows. I got home today and pulled out my files from my suitcase, and refiled them in my office, in their rightful spots, with notes to follow up on...as always. 

The Sunday Crew was much more laid back. My sister had left mid day on Saturday to attend  a wedding, and she didn't come back on Sunday. Sunday's crew consisted of my beloved aunt and cousin, my local friends who gave up their Sunday afternoon packing glassware, china, and miscellaneous coffee mugs, etc.  and moving them to the appropriate locations. Washing windows, shredding documents, My friends, all of whom have full and busy lives, came on Sunday to continue the work begun on Saturday with Dad's friends and family.  After a whirlwind of heat, fiberglass from the attic, frantic activity, lots of catching up, and even a trip to the town dump, renamed the transfer station or something equally ridiculous, we had the peace of Saturday night with our friends M and K up in a beautiful, hilly green, happy house. These friends are beyond. They give of their time, their love, always let us spend the night when we can't manage emotionally at my dad's. They are selfless friends who give away time on weekends that just bring them back to their jobs on Monday.  Sunday night, the trio, Ro Ro, K and me, marked furniture for the movers--things both for my sister and for myself--washed floors, vacuumed, cleaned counters, bathrooms; made last minute organization of the Estate Sale stuff, made ourselves familiar with various areas so any of the three of us could talk to this man as he passed through the house.  We had two hours before our plane was leaving...so Mr. Man needed to be all business. He was all that and very knowledgeable. He helped us decide what we should keep and what would really sell.

I wish Michelle had been there, but when she asked, I told her, no, no biggie--I guess I thought I'd see her on Sunday as we continued to work at our father's house. We still had work to do. But she was a trouper through Saturday, then didn't come back. I worry. I wonder. I've made no secret of what I feel are my brother in law's intentions, but I hoped she'd have brought a friend, for moral support on Sunday, so we could keep working and getting the house ready. It was hard what we did. I needed the moral support, and contacted my father's friends who'd volunteered, as well as high school friends who live locally. 

And so here we are, back at home. with the dumpsters full of detritis of a person's life. Of two people's lives, really, because many things in the attic were testaments to the person she used to be, and who they tried to be, together.

I will never forget the conversations I had with my dad during the last months of his life--how grateful I was to be with him for a lot of it. He said to me, many times, No More Secrets. My life is pretty open,  I live out in the open.  I kissed my dad's front door this morning as I was leaving, I kissed his car when we sold it on Friday. K and I went to the gravestone and laid flowers and stones. I kept touching it to make sure it was real, running my hands through the carvings of the names. My parents. On the next part of their journey.  So pretty sure we're not running parallel, but I'm going to ask for a sign. A person of faith told me it is okay to ask for a sign. A sign that they are...peaceful? happy? together? healthy? I may be subscribing a little too much to Christian doctrine here--not an authentic representation of who I am.  Are my parents' spirits waiting for new baby bodies to be born into? Would I ever meet them? Am I a whackadoodle for even contemplating this possibility?  

I'm going to light my grief release candle tonight, say the meditation, and make this part of my healing along with my daily inspirational reading. And then off to yoga. I am finding myself through all of this, and now get to move back into my professional life with this spiritual growth. 

And if some of you know only one small piece of this pie, look to the rest of the ingredients, and I pray, honestly, that you never experience what my family has. If it has taught me one thing (and that's hard to pinpoint) it is to seek out the bigger picture; I grow in ways I'd never expected by looking outside one person's view. Thank god for this gift.

Namaste. And I welcome myself back home.